Reviews 2006
Reviews 2006
✭✩✩✩✩
by Sarah Martyn, directed by Layne Coleman
Theatre Passe Muraille, Theatre Passe Muraille Mainspace, Toronto
April 20-May 8, 2006
Sparta by Sarah Martyn won the Audience Choice Award at SummerWorks 2001. The three-year play development process it has undergone at Theatre Passe Muraille has resulted in a mess. The plot is clichéd and poorly managed. The dialogue is forced and lifeless. The characters are sketchy and inconsistent. It’s like a parody of Canadian rural drama played straight.
The plot involves Mary (Aviva Chernick), a high-powered lawyer from Toronto, who returns to the family farm in Sparta, Ontario, to celebrate the 25th birthday of her sister Christina (Hilary Fennell). The family has a series of unmotivated arguments. Two secrets emerge. The first you see coming a mile off. The second drops out of nowhere. Martyn frustratingly prevents the characters from dealing with these revelations since she abruptly ends the play at the two-hour mark as it were an exam and she ran out of time.
Sometimes strong acting can redeem a feeble script, but there’s little on offer here. Fennell can do “sullen” and Chernick can do “smug” but that’s it. Bob Collins and Lorna Wilson struggle to make sense the self-contradictory speeches of Christina’s parents. Ryan Hollyman, however, surprisingly creates something out of nothing by giving Christina’s brother a real personality.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2006-04-27.
Photo: Aviva Chernick, Bob Collins and Lorna Wilson.
2006-04-27
Sparta